The American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) calls on governments and organizations at all levels to reaffirm their commitment to an inclusive society and to reject laws and policies that are counterproductive to it.

ASPA's Code of Ethics highlights the critical need to increase awareness and commitment to ethical principles and standards among all those who work in public service. These principles include:

Respecting and supporting government constitutions and laws, while seeking to improve laws and policies to promote the public good.

Treating all persons with fairness, justice and equality and respecting individual differences, rights and freedoms. Promoting affirmative action and other initiatives to reduce unfairness, injustice and inequality in society.

Prompted by recently enacted discriminatory legislation in North Carolina and Mississippi, ASPA supports the efforts of its membership in working to negate these regressive actions. Such laws as North Carolina HB2 and Mississippi HB 1523 undermine ASPA's Code and are damaging to an open and free society.

"Discrimination is incongruent with ASPA values," ASPA President Susan Gooden said. "ASPA represents a broad and diverse workforce and it is critical that our country has laws that respect and reflect its makeup."

ASPA encourages its members and all public servants to continue their constant work to promote an inclusive and nondiscriminatory society.

How is your organization, Chapter or Section participating in Public Service Recognition Week (PSRW) this year? Taking place May 1-7, this special week provides an opportunity for everyone to recognize the public servants in their lives.

Celebrated annually during the first week of May since 1985, PSRW is time set aside to honor the men and women who serve our nation as federal, state, county and local government employees. Throughout the country, elected officials, agency leaders, communities and public service organizations participate in PSRW by issuing proclamations, hosting award ceremonies, planning special tribute events and delivering messages about the value of public service.

In the D.C. area, the following events have been coordinated:

D.C. United GameSaturday, April 23 | 5:30 p.m. | RFK Stadium
As an early kick off to PSRW, government employees may purchase discount tickets for D.C. United's second annual Public Service Appreciation Night. More information is online.

Public Service 5K Run/WalkSunday, May 1 | 9 a.m. | Anacostia Park
Get some exercise and support a good cause! Proceeds benefit the Federal Employee Education and Assistance Fund. More information is online.

Washington Nationals GameTuesday, May 24 | 7:05 p.m. | Nationals Park
Government employees may sign up to receive a discount ticket. This offer is valid for May 24, as well as for most home games throughout the 2016 regular season. More information is online.

ASPA is also excited to note just a few of its Section and Chapter events:

Central Pennsylvania ChapterMonday, May 2 | 6 p.m. | Dixon University Center
Awards ceremony featuring a keynote from Sanjay Pandey on public service motivation and special remarks from ASPA executive director Bill Shields.

Rhode Island ChapterWednesday, May 4 | 9 a.m. | Bristol Campus of Roger Williams University
7th Annual Public Service and Leadership Conference: Helping People in Crisis, featuring a keynote address from ASPA president Susan Gooden and presentations from ASPA executive director Bill Shields and vice president Janice Lachance.

Social media feeds are already buzzing about PSRW. Use the following media to show your appreciation, share information about events and participate in this year's celebrations.

Like it on Facebook (Public Employees Roundtable), follow it on Twitter (@PERoundtable) and Instagram (PERoundtable) and join the conversation using #PSRW.

Public Service White Boards are available. Join the photo campaigns on Facebook and Instagram to proclaim your love for public servants and your pride in serving. Visit the PSRW website for more information.

PSRW also provides a great opportunity to take another look at the Public Service Stories Project on YouTube and share these videos with friends, colleagues, students and more. This collection was developed and curated by ASPA members and is a perfect showcase of the best of public service, extending PSRW beyond one single week of the year.

Is your Section, Chapter or organization celebrating PSRW? Tell us about your events so we can make sure to talk about them far and wide! Send event details to ASPA communications chief Karen Garrett and she will make sure to include it in ASPA's PSRW coverage.

ASPA is scheduling professional development webinars, student webinars and BookTalks for April, May and beyond. Averaging 75 attendees per webinar and free to ASPA members, these e-learning opportunities provide you with valuable insights and information at your fingertips.

In sheer numbers, no form of government control comes close to the police stop. Each year, 12 percent of drivers in the United States are stopped by the police and the figure is almost double among racial minorities. Police stops are among the most recognizable and frequently criticized incidences of racial profiling, but while numerous studies have shown minorities are pulled over at higher rates, none have examined how police stops have come to be both encouraged and institutionalized. Pulled Over, by Charles Epp, Steven Maynard-Moody and Donald Haider-Markel, deftly traces the strange history of the investigatory police stop, from its discredited beginning as "aggressive patrolling" to its current status as accepted institutional practice.

Great news! ASPA's Annual Conference photos are now posted online through Flickr! Whether you were in Seattle or not, you can head to the Flickr feed and check out great photos of the more than 1,350 people who were there. From the plenaries to special events to receptions and beyond, scroll through the speakers, awards and networking that took place. All photos are watermarked; if you would like your own copy of any of these photos, contact ASPA communications chief Karen Garrett (make sure to include the album name and photo number!) and she will send you a clean version.

We are also working to finalize conference survey results. Did you know:

42% of attendees were in Seattle primarily because of the plenary sessions

52% are very likely to recommend the Annual Conference to a friend

60% of this year's attendees are planning to attend the 2017 Annual Conference

We need your help to ensure this data is complete. While many attendees have filled out the questionnaire, we know some have not yet provided us with their opinions and feedback.

Make sure you do so by Friday, April 15, when the surveys close! Those who fill out an Annual Conference Survey, evaluating the entire event and providing their contact information at the end, will be entered to win a free registration to the 2017 Annual Conference.

Remember to also review the panels you attended—the most important element of the Conference. We cannot ensure they stay relevant and informative if you do not review them. This survey should take you less than two minutes to complete and will provide ASPA with your valued perspective. You can access the panel survey online here.

We appreciate your feedback and look forward to hearing from you regarding your experience in Seattle! Contact ASPA communications chief Karen Garrett with any questions about the questionnaires.

ASPA works diligently to reach its members where they spend their time, no matter the platform. If you get most of your information via social media, make sure you are following ASPA! We post most member communications, event notices, journal and publication articles and more through all of our social media channels, so make sure you are making the most of your ASPA membership by connecting through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn!

This just in! ASPA's Twitter feed has experienced more than 12 percent growth in the past six months and hit 2600 followers this week! If you have not already, join the feed and be more informed than ever before about public administration news, connections, research, events and more.

ASPA is almost ready to send the spring edition of PA TIMES magazine to the printer, which means you will have this most recent edition in your mailbox (or inbox!) shortly!

Do you have member news you would like to share through the magazine? Promotions, Board announcements, retirements, tenure details and more are all welcome. Please send them to PA TIMES managing editor Karen Garrett for consideration. Member news items must be received by April 20 to be considered for the Spring edition.

Hiring announcements and other news for the Recruiter section are treated as advertisements and will be sold as such. Contact ASPA's advertising partner, Ascend Integrated Media, for assistance.

This year's TPAC, taking place May 24-25 at Rutgers University - Newark, will feature keynote speaker Dr. William Howe as he presents: "Multicultural Education." Dr. Howe has been the President of Multicultural Dimensions, his own training and consulting firm, since 1991. He has been an educator for 35 years and the former program manager for culturally responsive education, multicultural education, bullying and harassment, gender equity and civil rights at the Connecticut State Department of Education.

The forum is designed for public administration educators, practitioners and students and paper proposals will be accepted through April 15. More information is online.

Offered by Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, the Innovations Award is one of the nation's premier awards for the public sector. It recognizes programs that demonstrate creative and effective government at its best. All units of government—federal, state, local, tribal and territorial—from all policy areas are eligible to apply for recognition. The application deadline has been extended to April 29, 2016.

The Ash Center is also offering the Roy and Lila Ash Innovations Award for Public Engagement in Government, a special Innovations Award that will recognize government-led programs that demonstrate novel and effective approaches to increasing public engagement and participation in the governance of towns, cities, states and the nation. The winners of the Innovations in American Government Award and the Roy and Lila Ash Award will each receive a $100,000 grant to support replication and dissemination activities in 2017. Top finalists will also receive monetary grants.

The Zambian Society for Public Administration (ZSPA) will host the International Conference on Sustainable Development and a Master class on Strategy Innovation and Organizational Leadership, June 16-18, 2016, in Lusaka. The conference brings together leading, researchers, scholars and practitioners to exchange and share experiences about all aspects of sustainable development.

ZSPA is issuing a call for papers related to conference tracks and Master class tracks. Paper proposals and conference registrations are due Friday, April 30. More information is online.

The 2016 Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology (AACS) Annual Conference will take place Oct. 6-8 in Greenwood Village, Colo. Open to academics, policy, program and project leaders, business, health care and government professionals who use sociology, the meeting will be a point of mutual learning and growth among practitioners in the field and professionals challenged with building systems for human improvement. Other disciplines are welcome to share their strategies, projects, policies and programs for improving the human condition. This is a chance to move beyond the "Sociological Imagination" to "Sociological Creativity." Conference organizers seek innovation and creativity in content and presentation form, not just papers. All are eligible including undergraduate and graduate student paper and problem solving competitions. Papers are due May 11, 2016. More information is online.

"Speak Your Mind" is a new PAR webpage feature that allows you to offer your own insights into the big questions of public administration. The responses serve as a community forum for discussion on a particular editorial piece in PAR and the format provides a platform for exchange of different ideas about how we think of public administration as a practical field of work, a scholarly research area and a theoretical foundation for forward thinking in democratic governance. Link to Speak Your Mind

Evidence in Public AdministrationTo Bridge the Divide between Evidence and Policy: Reduce Ambiguity as Much as Uncertainty

Policymakers cannot consider all evidence relevant to policy. They use two shortcuts—emotions and beliefs to understand problems and "rational" ways of establishing the best evidence on solutions—to act quickly in complex, multilevel policymaking environments. Many studies only address one part of this problem. Improving the supply of evidence helps reduce scientific and policymaker uncertainty. However, policymakers also combine their beliefs with limited evidence to reduce ambiguity by choosing one of several possible ways to understand and solve a problem. Paul Cairney (University of Stirling, United Kingdom), Kathryn Oliver (University of Oxford, United Kingdom) and Adam Wellstead (Michigan Technological University) use this insight to consider solutions designed to "close the evidence - policy gap." Link to PAR Early View

Research ArticleThe Power of Nonprofits: Mechanisms for Nonprofit Policy Influence

The dramatic increase in public funding for nonprofit organizations has raised concerns about the potential disadvantages of a nonprofit sector that is too reliant on government funding. Using nonprofits to deliver public programs also presents risks for the public sector, but the question of nonprofit policy influence is largely absent from discussions of public–nonprofit service collaborations. The motivation for this article stems from the contradiction between the perceived weakness of publicly funded nonprofits and their potential for policy influence. Rachel Fyall (University of Washington) asks: how do nonprofits exert policy influence? Using a grounded theory approach, the research draws on the attitudes and experiences of professionals and elected officials involved in policymaking and policy implementation in the area of low-income housing. The findings indicate a variety of mechanisms through which the government-nonprofit relationship can strengthen the power of nonprofit organizations, sometimes while weakening their government counterparts. Link to PAR Early View

Book ReviewsDanny L. Balfour and Stephanie P. Newbold, Editors
Auto-Correct Is a Two-Edged . . . Sweater? Toward a More Mindful Public Service

Neal D. Buckwalter (Grand Valley State University) reviews Mindless: Why Smarter Machines Are Making Dumber Humans (2014) by Simon Head and Public Service Values (2014) by Richard C. Box. Buckwalter explores two books with seemingly different themes, but there is a common thread: practitioners and scholars in the field can glean much through these two works, including how we might move toward a more mindful public service. Link to PAR Early View

Training and Educating Top Civil Servants: Specialists in Generalism

Jos C. N. Raadschelders (The Ohio State University; University of Leiden, The Netherlands) reviews Leadership and Culture: Comparative Models of Top Civil Servant Training (2015) by Montgomery Van Wart, Annie Hondeghem and Erwin Schwella. According to Raadschelders, the volume provides insight into programs offered to Top Civil Servants (TCS) in 19 countries. The focus of the volume is on training leaders who advise policymakers. Link to PAR Early View

Every Tuesday and Friday, ASPA publishes a curated collection of original content that covers public service, management and international affairs.

For issues being published in the second quarter of 2016, we welcome submissions that focus on millennial changes and implications for governance models. Send us your submissions now! The deadline is rolling; contact us for more information.

Looking for interesting commentary on news events and contemporary issues? Check out the ASPA Blog, which features a collection of authors writing on everyday life from the eyes of a public manager, student or young professional.